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Premature birth is when a baby is born before the normal end of pregnancy. In humans, a pregnancy normally lasts for about nine months or 266 days.
Babies who are born before 37 complete weeks of pregnancy (calculated from the last menstrual period) are said to be premature. In the United States, about 12% of the babies are born prematurely (that is about one in every eight babies). In 2003, there were over 490,000 premature births.
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